Vicious Circle

I was probably two seconds or so from passing out, after which all bets would have been canceled and, no doubt, so would I. But suddenly there was a bigger, stockier shape looming up behind Rafi, and a muscular black arm locked around his neck. It was Paul. He looked strained and pale, which was scarcely surprising, but his movements were methodical: he used his greater weight and leverage to bend Rafi backward until his grip started to slacken on my throat. Rafi hissed voicelessly and threw up his hands to tear Paul’s grip free.

Weak and dazed as I was, I forced myself to move, because it didn’t look as though I’d be getting a second chance. I rolled hard, shifting my weight to throw Rafi further off his center of gravity, and at the same time I punched him with as much force as I could on the point of the jaw. Caught off balance, he slid sideways out of Paul’s hands and we both scrambled clear.

I turned around with my arms up ready to defend myself against a renewed attack, but whatever was happening to Rafi now had made him forget all about me. He was still lying on the ground where he’d fallen, and another ululating howl of pain and desolation was pouring without pause out of his gaping mouth. It was as if my punch hadn’t registered with him at all: whatever was hurting him, I could see it had nothing to do with me.

Paul knelt down beside Rafi and felt his pulse. He rolled Rafi’s eyelids back and inspected his eyes, then extended the examination to gums and teeth, which was a risk I wouldn’t have taken myself. Rafi kept on howling, directly into Paul’s face: he seemed to have forgotten our existence.

Two more male nurses loomed over us, looking down at Rafi as if they were wondering where it might be safe to take ahold of him. Paul glanced up, saw them, and pointed into the cell. “Karen,” he shouted over Rafi’s inhuman keening. “She’s still inside. Get her out of there.” They snapped to attention like soldiers, turned around and went into the cell.

From where I was kneeling I had a good view through the doorway. I saw the two men kneel beside the fallen nurse, one of them touching a hand to her forehead. Then I saw her move, flinching away from the touch. She was hurt, maybe badly hurt, but she wasn’t dead. Caught between relief and delayed shock, I felt a sickly floating sensation rise inside me, filling me like sour gas: I doubled over and threw up copiously. It was a few moments before I could take notice of my surroundings again.

When I did, I realized that Rafi’s siren-sharp wail had died away into abrupt silence. Pen had him cradled in her arms, and Paul was kneeling beside her, his forefinger on Rafi’s bare wrist again and an abstracted frown on his face.

Dr. Webb approached us with a certain caution, eyeing the mess I’d just made on the carpet. Then his gaze traversed to Rafi, his head in Pen’s lap as she murmured reassurances to him and smoothed his sweat-slicked hair off his forehead. Rafi seemed to be asleep now—a profound, exhausted sleep, his chest rising and falling slowly with his long, deep breaths. Still, Webb’s eyes continually kept flicking back to him as he snapped out orders to his staff to start putting the place back together.

I stood up, my legs shaky, and pulled my crushed shirt collar back into some kind of shape, wincing at the pain in my equally crushed throat. “What set this off?” I asked Webb, my voice sounding hoarse and flat.

He gave a bleak snort. “Nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all. Karen and Paul went in to give him his evening meds, and he took them. One moment he was fine, the next—well, you saw. He started screaming, and when Karen tried to calm him he lashed out at her. We’re lucky she wasn’t killed.”

I nodded dumbly at that. I couldn’t think of anything to say. Webb wasn’t expecting an answer, though. “Castor,” he said, “this brings forward a discussion we were going to have to have in any case. When we took Ditko on, we did so in the belief that we could help him. We clearly can’t. He needs dedicated facilities of a kind that we can’t offer.”

I looked down at Pen. She wasn’t hearing this, fortunately. “There aren’t any dedicated facilities for what Rafi’s got,” I pointed out, but that was bullshit and he knew it. There just weren’t any that I wanted to deliver him to.

“There’s the MOU,” Webb said.

“Rafi’s not a lab rat.”

“He’s not mentally ill, either. He doesn’t belong here.”

“We’ve got a contract,” I pointed out, playing my ace.

Webb trumped it. “ ‘Voidable where the welfare of staff or other inmates is at stake,’ ” he quoted from memory. “I don’t think there’s any argument about that.”

I shrugged. “We’ll talk.”

Webb shook his head. “No, we won’t. Make alternative arrangements, Castor. You have twenty-eight days.”

“You’re all heart, Webb,” I croaked. “You’ll have to toughen up or people will start taking advantage of you.”

He gave me an austere, contemptuous look. “Nobody can say you didn’t try,” he said coldly.

* * *